


Shifted

by waltzwithus



Category: Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, Jupiter curses a lot, because that's fun, may tie into original anime or follow Crystal eventually depending on how lazy I get, oops now I'm shipping Mars/Venus oh well, season 1 AU, taking liberties with their powers, youma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-08 23:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1960047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzwithus/pseuds/waltzwithus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A late-night battle against a deadly youma sends Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen reeling down a path of discovery.</p><p>With a side dish of Rei/Minako.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Usagi_

It is two forty-seven in the morning and I really hate Luna.

“Usagi!”

Yeah, yeah. I know. Just let me reconnect my brain real quick.

“Usagi-chan, youma! Wake up!”

“Mm nrfnrgz!” I say, which is as close as I can get to “I’m coming!” With gargantuan effort, I heave my legs off the bed and the rest of my body sort of crumples after, leaving me in a heap on the floor. 

“Brooch,” Luna snaps, shoving it into my hand with a bat of her paw. I flail a palm onto the brooch and mumble, “Moon Pris’m P’wer… make up.”

A moment later I’m in my fuku. Still on the floor, of course, but in my fuku.

“Get up! Get up!” Luna cries, scratching at my thigh. “Go! Hurry!”

“Where,” I demand, clambering to my feet. I flex my toes inside the boots, shake out my shoulders and arms. I need to be alert. I need to be spry. 

“Just outside Makoto’s apartment,” says Luna. “Go!”

Oh great. Mako-chan lives an awkward distance away from my house, too far to walk, but too short to merit taking the bus or subway (on normal occasions, that is – I can’t imagine the public’s reaction to Sailor Moon on the train). Running there will be a pain in the ass. I hope the other girls are already up and fighting, all of them – together, they can certainly keep the youma at bay until I arrive to finish it off. Too bad they need me at all; otherwise I might just go back to bed.

What a great leader I am.

I throw myself out my bedroom window, landing in a silent crouch on the pavement below. Immediately, I start running.

I’m getting more used to these long distances, and I can tell my physique is shaping up a bit, but that doesn’t keep me from gasping for breath after the umpteenth block. I wish I could drive. A disguised car, of course. One that transforms with me. Like the Batmobile. How nice would that be? And I could program it – well, Ami-chan could program it – to steer itself, and I could sleep on the way…

No, no sleep. Don’t think about sleep. Think about defeating those evil youma who keep you from sleep. Much more effective.

Is it strange, I wonder, that the first person I associate with exhaustion is… him? Only seeing him after midnight, deep blue circles beneath his eyes (or the parts that I can see around his mask), the harshness of his stature that, when the battle is over, when he thinks no one is watching, dulls into a slouch, and he becomes something more human. More fallible. Haggard, even, despite his clean-cut suit and crisp flowing cape. I am as tired as the man behind that mask, whoever he might be.

I'm nearly wheezing when I round the final corner and squint through the lamplight at the shopping center across from Makoto’s apartment. I pause for a second, catching my breath, before a dark shape moves across the rooftop. I scan the building, looking for the best way up, and out of nowhere a shadow darts to my side. 

“Took you long enough,” says Sailor Mars as I choke in surprise and tell her not to give me a heart attack next time. 

“I was behind you all along,” she quips. “Be more observant.” Together, we look back to the roof. “We need to get it down here. We’re too vulnerable at those heights.”

“Who’s up there?” I ask, assuming that it’s – 

“Jupiter. We figured if anyone could, safely…”

“How long has she been at it?”

“Five minutes, maybe longer. She’s only gotten in one attack. It’s quick.”

I scowl. “Well she needs to get him down already! Where are the others?”

“Down the block.” Mars nods her head, pointing. “In case Jupiter comes down over there. Then we can close in.” 

But the roof is eerily still, almost defiantly so. “I don’t see her.”

“Good,” says Mars. “If you did, the youma would too. You have to watch out with this one, Moon. It’s tricky.”

“How so?” I ask, but just then a cry pierces the quiet and I see something falling, followed by a long, thin rope that seems to move on its own, snakelike. 

“Jupiter!” Mars yells, and we take off down the block. Shapes that look like Venus and Mercury appear at the end of the building. A shout of “Crescent Beam!” rings out, and a blaze of light collides with the rope, which recoils to the roof.

I run up to Mercury and Jupiter, who seems a bit dazed from the fall, but mostly unharmed. “That thing,” she says, looking up at us, “is faster than a fucking bullet. Pardoning the cliché.”

“I’ll spare you this time,” says Mars, gritting her teeth (more from the stress than the statement). 

Before we can regroup another rope-like tendril wraps around Mars’ ankle and grabs her up in the air. I scream and jump after her, grappling for her dangling hands, while the others shout in astonishment. 

“Get it!” Venus shrieks to Jupiter.

“I’ll electrocute them both! You get it!”

“I got the last one!”

“Venus, now!” I command, knowing her attack will be more effective than Mercury’s defensive Spray. 

Swearing, Venus obeys, and a moment later I am pinned to the ground beneath an extremely white-faced Mars as the Beam flies true and frees her. 

“Did you have to fall on me?” I dig myself out from under her.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking.” She pulls herself to her feet and brushes out her skirt.

“We’re too close to the roof, still,” says Mercury. “Everyone, get out into the road, and let’s see if we can lure it down.”

Venus darts to the street and takes a moment to glance at Mars as the rest of us join her. “Nice thong.”

Mars’ cheeks blaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You were upside down, sweetie-pie. What did you expect?” Venus giggles. “You mooned us all. Hey, get it? Mooned?”

I stick my tongue out at her. Mars folds her arms in dignified silence. 

“Funny,” says Jupiter. “That’s hilarious, Venus. You really should give up this Senshi business and go for comedy instead.”

“It’s coming!” Mercury hisses. 

We shift immediately into defensive stance, arms at the ready, feet planted. “Mercury,” I whisper.

“Yes?” 

“What is this youma, exactly…?”

She turns to me to respond, but then a large dark thing peaks over the roof and hurdles to the ground, rolling toward us in a fluid spidery motion. Its ropey tentacles slither over the ground, propelling it forward.

“Move!” Jupiter roars, and we scatter, Mars and I to the left, the others to the right. It halts, swivels momentarily, uncertain of which group to pursue. Mars and I hover in limbo, wondering whether to run or attack, when it starts barreling our way again. 

Mars swears and grabs me, pulls me away. I break into a run at her heels. 

“The others!” I gasp as the youma draws silently nearer. 

“They’ll cover us! Come on!”

Behind us, Venus and Jupiter howl their attacks; I pray it buys us time. We reach the corner of the building and dash behind it. Hoping we’ve made it out of the youma’s reach, I turn to gauge how much damage has been done – if I have time for the final blow. 

My breath shoots away as I find the youma inches from my face, towering five feet above me, slimy black tentacles shuddering towards me. I barely register Mars’ scream before I’m in the air, the world zooming around like an unfocused camera. Flashes of building, sky, sidewalk, road blur together and then I am flying towards the ground. I brace myself for the impact, shield my face with my arms – 

I am yanked, completely disoriented, back towards the sky, a different tentacle wrapped around my waist. The girls are screaming, but I am moving too fast, I think, for Venus or Mars to aim without hitting me. Jupiter, of course, would electrocute me. 

Another tentacle wraps around me. And another. I hear myself yelling, flailing, cursing, kicking, but my arms are pinned tight by my sides and my legs are wrapped together. The tendrils around me start to glow a slight silvery sheen. They grow oddly cool against my skin, tingly and hypersensitive, like a mouthful of mint. In a sickening wave of impact, I become lightheaded, woozy, almost nauseous, and my muscles start relaxing against my will. My limbs go limp, my vision fuzzy and gray. 

“What’s going on?” Venus’ voice echoes in my ears. “Why is it shining like that?”

“It’s taking her energy!” Jupiter cries. 

“Venus, Mars, hit it!” Mercury sounds shriller than usual. 

“I’m trying!” Mars growls, and there are flashes of red and orange light, but the youma does not flinch, only tightens around me, gently, persuasively. Don’t fight, I can almost hear it murmur. It’s alright, you can give in. It’s warm here, don’t fight me. I feel like a squeezed lemon, the life-juice slowly seeping out of me. The world goes darker, narrower, and I sink into the youma’s grasp. My body is useless to defend me.

Vaguely, I hear them calling my name. “Hold on, Sailor Moon!”  
“Moon! Don’t give up!” 

I don’t want to give up, I want to keep fighting, but… it’s so… it’s too…

My eyes drift closed.

The screaming is dulled now in my ears, and I can’t feel the speed of the tentacles keeping me from the Senshi’s reach. Instead I am floating, drifting on waves of sweet, syrupy numbness, washing away… 

There is a sudden whirring and then I feel the wind again. I am falling instead of floating, and pain bursts in the back of my head and my spine and my shoulder blades as I collide with cold hard ground. 

“Shit,” someone hisses.

“MOON!” screams Venus’ voice.

“You idiot! Watch the fuck out!” That’s Jupiter, alright. Is she yelling at me for falling? 

The same someone groans nearby, then swears again. “Sailor Moon,” whispers a familiar voice, urgently. “Sailor Moon, wake up.”

My eyes manage to open slightly. It’s him, alright. Crouching against the wall, a bloody scrape on his knee, looking at me with shadowed eyes. 

Tuxedo Kamen, I try to say, but my mouth won’t move, and the world is still so blurry.

“You need to defeat this youma,” says Tuxedo Kamen, firmly and quietly. “I’ll help you, but you have to do it. Alright?”

I want him to keep talking. His voice is so smooth, like cologne. Or maybe that’s his smell. 

“Sailor Moon, can you hear me?”

I realize my eyes are closed again. I open them and his face is even closer. It feels very important to catalogue the small hollow between his nose and upper lip. 

“I’ll help you,” he repeats. “But we need to do it now. On the count of three. Ready?”

He takes off my tiara and wraps my fingers around it. My hand drops to my lap, but his own gloved fingers tighten firmly around mine, securing the tiara in my grasp.

“One.” He raises my shoulders from the ground. I register that the youma is lost in Mercury’s Spray and battling attacks from Venus, Mars, and Jupiter all at once. 

“Two.” His other arm curls around my waist, pulling me further upright. My head dips back, unsupported by my floppy neck; he catches it on his shoulder. 

“Three.” 

“Moon…” I inhale heavily. “Moon Tiara Action.” 

It is barely audible, but it is something. With a flick of our wrists, the disc soars towards the youma and finally – finally – it shatters in a burst of light.

“Well done,” says Tuxedo Kamen in my ear. “I knew you could do it.”

Then there are a lot of colored shoes around us. 

“You dropped her!” Mars barks. I watch the toe of her pumps tap against the ground in disgust. The rhythm is reassuring.

“At least he got her out,” says Mercury grimly. 

“I didn’t drop her,” says Tuxedo Kamen. “I was knocked out of the air. We fell together.”

“Ah,” says Jupiter scathingly, “these are the details that matter.”

“Why isn’t she moving?” Venus demands. “She defeated the youma, right? Shouldn’t her energy be restored?”

There is a tight pause.

“I think not,” Tuxedo Kamen says. “Her power restores others’ energies when she shatters a youma. How can power that has been drained from her restore itself?”

“What are you suggesting?” Mars snaps.

“I’m suggesting that someone else will have to restore her energy,” Tuxedo Kamen says, quite calmly. 

“Well…” Jupiter sounds dubious. “I mean… I’ve never done that before.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that any of you were capable.” An arm slides behind my back, another under my knees, and then I am curled into a warm, sweet-scented body.

“Hey, wait a – !“

“What do you think you’re doing!”

“Oh, so you can fix her, is that it?”

“I have every reason to believe so,” says Tuxedo Kamen. “If you’ll excuse us, ladies.”

Jupiter laughs, too loudly. "Yeah, sure, you go ahead and take her and we'll just watch."

“If I told you where I was going," Tuxedo Kamen says patiently, "that would defeat the purpose of taking her there at all." 

"Oh, so clever," Jupiter sneers. "You just always know what to say, don't you?"

Mars jumps in, interrupting. I can hear the tremor in her voice, the forced calm. “We don’t know you, and you’ve made it very clear you don’t want to know us. Hand her over.”

She's right. I shouldn't go with him. He is after the same thing as the Dark Kingdom, after all. I should be worried. I should want him to leave me here, with my allies.

Tuxedo Kamen gives a small sigh. I feel it rise against me through the barrier of his chest like tectonic plates settling deep within the ground. “Don’t think for a second that any conventional treatment will counteract a youma’s effects. She needs power that can combat the Dark Kingdom’s.”

“And you have that power?” says Mercury skeptically.

Tuxedo Kamen is silent.

“I don’t trust him,” Mars murmurs.

“You don’t have to,” says Tuxedo Kamen. Then there is wind, a lot of it, and my stomach swoops. I see a vast dark sky, and the sliver of a moon. I don’t see much else, after that. I only feel the rushing, the dropping, the swift impact, my head cushioned in the crook of his shoulder. He smells like a fresh shower.

I don’t know where he’s taking me. I don’t understand why he couldn’t tell the others. The park, he could say. The gym. The high school. Anywhere. Anywhere people wouldn’t see. As if there were people around to see, so late at night. And the girls could come, too, to make sure he didn’t… not that he would. I don’t believe for a second that he would. I just feel a little vulnerable, like this, not because I can’t move my toes, but because of the thrill of fear that his scent sends through me – that vein of uncertainty billowing around me like his thick black cape. I don’t know him, but I feel like I should – like I could – like I would, if only something shifted… 

A wave of calm spreads through me and I open my eyes to a rush of intuition, of clarity so complete and still so entirely obscured. The shadow of his profile. I know that face.

I know that face…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all. Haven't been around the fanfiction scene in the past 3 years, but I found this lingering on my hard drive and thought it needed a home. Now that Crystal is a thing, maybe I'll even continue it. 
> 
> The original was posted on FFN but I've cleaned it up a bit, as it's been awhile. 
> 
> Heh. Of all the things I've missed about Sailor Moon, Tux is at the top. He'll have to have a few chapters to himself if this becomes longer.


	2. Chapter 2

_Usagi_

Somewhere there are whispers – hushed sibilant sounds that ebb and flow in volume, contracting and expanding deeply, deep, deep inside my mind. They are pining for me, pawing at me with padded fingertips, dragging me from the dregs of whatever dark and empty haven I have found. I sag against their grasp, but they persist, pulling, prodding, raising me up into a sphere where reality is stark and bleak, where silence and sound collide into chaos.

I feel everything in slow secretions – the overbearing nothingness, the waves of sensation that occasionally lap at my limbs. Cold and pain – those I can identify, but distantly, as if I were watching them overtake me from afar. 

A faint call pierces through the white noise that clogs my head like cotton balls. It barely registers through my senses, as unremarkable as a pinprick on a callused finger. But then it calls again, that tiny jolt on my radar. And again. And again.

Watery warmth seeps over me, gentle and nourishing, and I begin to notice. Shallow breath slumping in and out of my chest. Throbbing in the back of my head. A clean, sweet smell – wet grass and shaving cream. 

I swallow against a dry throat and my ears seem to pop or expand or open and then I can hear it – 

“Come on,” he grits through his teeth. “Come on, dammit. What do you expect me to do? I don’t know these things. I don’t have pink jewelry that heals people.” He snorts. “Moon healing tiara magic sparkles, or whatever.”

No, that’s wrong – he got that wrong. I try to correct him but I seem to be a few feet away from my mouth.

“Well,” he says, in such a contemplative manner that I’m expecting something really profound – “shit.”

So much for profound.

“I dunno, Sailor Moon,” he sighs. “I really don’t. At daybreak we might still be sitting here with you looking as good as dead and me being the most useless man to ever wear a mask.” He pauses. “Usually they make a difference. In the stories, you know. They always know what to do.” He swears again and I can feel the tightness of frustration and anxiety tense in his abdomen. “And now I’m talking to you like you can hear me.” He sounds uncertain. “…you can’t hear me, right?” 

But I can. It’s just a little fuzzy. Also my whole body is numb. Which is unhelpful.

“Okay, this is not... Not good.” I hear him swallow. “Think, you moron. Think. You told those girls you knew what you were doing, now act like it.”

A gentle brush against my cheek tingles a few nerves back into sensation. A soft touch runs along my jaw, my nose, my forehead, bringing my face back to life. My eyelids. I squeeze them a little, experimentally. 

He freezes. “Sailor Moon?” 

I squeeze my eyes tight again, a confirmation. 

“Are you – are you there?” The same gloved touch sweeps down my arm, so light, so tentative. He fumbles for my hand with his own and grasps it firmly. 

As warmth crawls into my fingers, I manage to squeeze back.

“What is it?” he says excitedly, desperately. “What can I do, what’s working?” The hand leaves mine and cups my cheek. My face tilts into his hold. 

He laughs then, nervously. “What, just that? Hmm.” His next words tickle my ear; I can feel the wetness of his lips against my cheek. “Well I can do that,” he whispers.

He says it with a thickness in his voice that raises goosebumps on my skin. Then his hand is on my knee, trailing up my thigh in the same gentle, uncertain touch. He pauses when he reaches the hem of my skirt and switches to my other leg, traveling back down to the knee. He proceeds to take my calf between his hands and massage it with his thumbs, and a low breath escapes me as my leg tingles and sparks with awakening. The same sensation meets one foot, then the other, then the other calf. 

The hand wrapped beneath my shoulders, supporting me, spreads across my stomach and rests there for a moment before trickling up my sides, and it tickles, and a laugh chokes out of me and my eyes fly open and he’s there, astonished and grinning and very dark eyes, right in front of my face. His mask is painted gray by shadow but the moonlight reflects from his eyes. His hat is off, his hair disheveled and a little overgrown, and he stares at me with joyous disbelief spread into his smile. 

“Hi,” he murmurs.

“Mhmhmuhh,” I reply, because my mouth is still kind of dead. 

His grin softens. “Can’t talk?” His face is even closer now, his nose brushing the tip of my own. I can see straight through the holes in his mask, into thickly lashed eyes. I wait for the alert from my brain, for panic mode to switch on, for the cacophony of warnings and red lights to flare. 

Nothing. Radio silence.

So I am completely at ease when our lashes mix and he presses my back up against him and tilts his head and kisses me. The contact is enough, just his warm dry lips resting on mine. Enough to make me feel the kiss, enough for me to move my mouth. He pulls away after a few sweet seconds and I massage my lips against each other.

“Better?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah,” I croak.

“That’s a relief,” he says. “I think Jupiter would have skinned me if it didn’t work.”

“Probably.” I stare at him and he stares at me. My heartbeat is an engine on overdrive. 

“Can you get home?” he asks me.

I flex my toes, my legs, roll my shoulders. “I think so.” 

“Good.” He stands somehow, fluidly, even though his legs were crossed beneath him and I am still in his arms. But he immediately sets me down, and I wobble a little under buckling knees. His arm shoots out and steadies me. 

“Are you sure?”

I smile up at him, a little embarrassed. “Yeah.” Goodness, he’s tall. Taller than I realized, anyway. “Ah – thank you.”

“Of course.”

“No, I mean – thank you,” I explain, as if this made everything clearer. “For everything. For always being there when we need you…” But he doesn’t do much for the other girls, does he? “When I need you,” I correct myself, more softly.

“Well,” he laughs, and almost say something but then doesn’t, and scratches his neck. Almost sheepishly. As if he were someone who felt shame. A small thrill ripples through my pulse, the way it always does when I get those tiny delicious flashes of his humanity.

“You’re not going to tell me why, are you?” I know as soon as I say it that it's futile, but I can't help myself.

He sighs a bit. “Not tonight, Sailor Moon. Not yet.”

I shouldn’t have expected anything better. “Well, thank you anyway.” I hesitate, and he lingers, and there is no reason to stay but we watch each other in the moonlight and the fluorescence of the city, and he has just said that he cannot tell me more but I want to draw it from him, ensnare it from his lips. I want to know everything. I want to know him. 

“Eventually,” he promises, when the stillness grows too heavy. And because one of us has to, he turns away before disappearing over the edge of the – 

“Tuxedo Kamen!” I cry out softly after him. I hadn’t realized we were on a rooftop jutting high over the skyline. I rush to the edge of the roof, and recoil from the tremendous ledge he fell from. Another mystery. 

And I know I will have to know. However difficult he might be to uncover, it would be a hundred times harder to ignore the compulsion that lies restlessly, gut-deep, inside me. Rei always says I am too nosy, and maybe I am, but this is far fiercer, a wrenching urge that I know will eat me if I do not indulge its hunger.

With one last look at the now-empty street so far below, I turn back to the rooftops and set out towards home.


	3. Chapter 3

_Usagi_

Makoto wordlessly passes around a large container of coffee before school the next morning. We murmur thanks and drink quickly, before Minako can chug more than her portion. She’s always dangerous around caffeine. 

In spite of the sleepy stupor that lulls me through the morning, lunch comes far too fast. Rei unpacks her bento on her lap and fixes me with a steely gaze. “How are you?” It sounds like a challenge.

“Fine,” I say. “I can move and everything.”

Minako giggles. “Yeah, that’s a bonus.”

Makoto grimaces with a tsk. She and Rei exchange a look.

“Usagi-chan,” says Ami tentatively, “I think all of us would feel much better knowing what happened when… when you left.” Her eyes are kind but concerned, and Rei and Makoto seem poised for attack at a moment’s notice. I look to Minako a bit desperately. Her face is open and receptive and I find myself talking directly to her.

“It was nothing, really. We went to a roof, just some apartment.” I hesitate, knowing they won’t want to hear the full truth, but not wanting to lie. “He - fixed me.”

The question of how reverberates between us. I keep looking at Minako, the softness in her eyes coaxing me further. 

“He touched me,” I mumble. “Not - not like that. Nothing like that. Just. It was enough. Without the gloves.” I can’t even look at Minako, now. My fingers flex and intertwine, and I fixate on the joints cracking.

“I don’t like it,” says Rei eventually.

Minako, to my surprise, gives a small huff. “Of course you don’t.”

“You’re okay with it?” I glance up to see them watching each other too intently. 

“What he said was true,” Minako insists. “None of us could have done it instead. We may not know his motives, but he has yet to prove himself as anything but an ally.”

“A reluctant one,” Ami says, but there is a concession in her shrug.

“Then why hide so much?” Makoto grumbles. “Why not just tell us what he’s up to?”

“Well,” says Minako, “I hid from you awhile, too. But here I am.” Our eyes meet and she offers me a small smile. I return it, gratitude tight in my chest. 

Rei is still, no longer eating. “We don’t need him,” she says. “Shouldn’t we be enough, together?”

Makoto frowns. “We are enough.” 

“If we were more careful, we would be,” Ami murmurs. She gives me a thoughtful glance. “It’s a matter of tactics, really. We guard our reserves more carefully.”

I realize by “reserves” she means me. 

Minako nods with the briskness of a natural leader. “The rest of us will have to be riskier - we can afford to be more reckless, since Usagi can patch us up in the end.”

Ami and Makoto hum agreement. 

Rei glares at her bento. “So no more Cape Boy, then.”

“Rei-chan,” I mumble.

Her eyes flash up at me. “If we don’t know him, we can’t trust him.”

“Rei,” I beg. “He only helped me.”

“He could have helped you with the rest of us there.” She stands as if the conversation is over. “Next time he has to go through me.” She strides back into the building.

My throat aches. I realize too late that my eyes are smarting.

“She means well,” says Makoto wryly.

“It’s just that she cares about you, Usagi-chan.” Ami’s voice is forever gentle. “And it scares her.”

Minako rises to her feet, her gaze fixed on the courtyard door. She looks down at me and grins, as if the whole thing has been sorted out. “Don’t worry,” she chirps. “It’ll be all right.” And she trots into the building.

“That’s not going to go well, is it,” says Makoto. 

Ami gives a tiny sigh. 

 

_Minako_

The hallway is empty save for Rei’s figure leaning against the windowsill. She does not turn to me, but I know she can hear my footsteps. 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” she says in a poor imitation of Makoto’s unaffected drawl. 

Oh, Rei. Would it hurt you so much to show that you cared?

“And Usagi doesn’t need a watchdog,” I reply, leaning my shoulder into the wall beside her. 

Her face remains motionless, chin slightly raised in defiance. “I don’t see how you can be so careless. Seeing as you’re the leader, and all.”

The words are meant to challenge, to sting. I let them slide past me. For all her sparks and flames, Rei can be so transparent. “Sailor V worked by herself for a long time.” I wait, assuming Rei will want to interrupt, but she says nothing. “She was good on her own, you know. And I almost thought - when I knew the rest of you were out there, waiting for me - I almost thought, wouldn’t it be easier to stay a solo act?” I smile to myself, remembering Artemis and I on our own. It feels like a lifetime ago. Somehow remembering how young I was then only makes me feel too young now. “But it was hard. No one to turn to. And that one little doubt I had, I knew it was stupid. As soon as I saw you all. Not just because I knew I could trust you. Because I knew you were waiting for me. You were my family. You are my family. I never had that before.”

Rei gives a little toss of her hair, a small acknowledgment that she is still listening.

“It’s hard to care,” I admit. “To love you all, and to know we could be hurt, so badly, any of us. But it’s so much worse to be alone. I think that trusting in you, and the others, and in myself, to protect you all - I think that’s worth it. We’re stronger that way. Even if there’s more to lose.”

“I dream about it,” says Rei. “How we lost everything, before.”

I reach out, hesitating for only a moment, before laying a hand on her arm. She does not jerk away. I step closer, turning myself to her side and together we look out the window. City and road and sky. I sigh, a smile twitching on my lips.

“Hey, Rei-chan. Isn’t it a beautiful world that gave us a second chance?”

I glance at her. She holds her bottom lip tight between her teeth. It’s okay to be scared, Rei. It’s okay to love someone that much. It’s a sign that there’s good to fight for.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if Usagi wasn’t so stupid,” she says, her face breaking into a smirk. 

“If he breaks her heart, you can fry him to a crisp,” I promise. “Ally or not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok it is high time that we get Tux in here am I right?


End file.
